This is the last of the pictures I will be sharing from my recent trip to North Wales when I visited the Syngun Copper Mine near Beddgelert and then the beach at Black Rock Sands near Porthmadog. I really didn't think I would get so many usable images from that day because the conditions were so mixed but I have been pleasantly surprised.
As you can see it was a beautiful day although if you have followed my posts over the last two weeks you will be aware that it was actually bitterly cold and although the sun was high in the sky behind me a snow storm was blowing in.
I took this shot in landscape mode and again as here in portrait mode and while you might expect a beach scene to look better as a landscape image I think that with the position of the sun it looks much better in portrait mode.
Shooting into the sun can often lead to washed out or over exposed images but I think I managed to get the settings just right for this one and I love the flare on the sun which was achieved in camera without the use of a filter.
An alternate title for today's blog was going to be "Breaking Through".
At the end of the day, after several hours of walking across moorland over rocky ledges and through cool woodland the final part of our day was a stretch along a narrow country lane. There had been threats of heavy rain and storms but fortunately it didn't materialise and at times the sun managed to break through and cast a golden glow upon the green fields, the moors and the valley.
In the first picture looking in the direction of Wildboarclough I love the pattern of dry stone walls.
In the second picture you can make out the rays of the sun fanning out through the clouds. I have cropped the image to cut out some lens flare but if you look at the bottom of the image there is an unusual flare like a smiley face emoticon, I have no idea how this was formed but it is genuine and not a trick of post production.
In the third picture the sun is lighting up the surface of Tittesworth reservoir, which was constructed in 1858 to supply the town of Stoke on Trent.
Normally I would try to avoid lens flare however every now and then it can work to good effect as I think it does in today's pictures of this reed head with its seeds ready to blow away on the wind.
HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!
I thought I would start the new year with some fresh early morning images. I also thought that the song Feeling Good by Muse fits really well with todays post so after looking at the pictures why not take a few minutes to listen to the tune on YouTube.
The pictures above are all slightly different takes of the same view of West Kirby Marine Lake, just slightly different angles and different exposures. Shooting into the sun can be problematic and lens flare can spoil a good image however I think that in these pictures the warm glow of the morning sun (although it was actually bitterly cold) and the slight flare work well.
Tomorrow I will have a few monochrome images from the morning photo shoot for you.
